Delphine Balley

Magnétisme animal, 2024

Inkjet photography on satin photo paper, collage on Forex.
Courtesy of the artist

Lire la peau, 2024

Inkjet photography on satin photo paper, collage on Forex.
Courtesy of the artist

L’arrière-monde, 2024

Inkjet photography on satin photo paper, collage on Forex.
Courtesy of the artist

La loge bleue, 2024

Inkjet photography on satin photo paper, collage on Dibon.
Courtesy of the artist

Dessin spirite, 2024

Inkjet photography on satin photo paper, collage on Dibon.
Courtesy of the artist

Channeling, 2024

Inkjet photography on satin photo paper, collage on Forex.
Courtesy of the artist

L’agent inconnu, 2024

Inkjet photography on satin photo paper, collage on Forex.
Courtesy of the artist
Creations for the 17th Lyon Biennale

Delphine Balley uses family, friends and people from her village as models and actors to tell photo and video stories that explore our relationship with reality and faith. Working with a large-format film camera, she has adopted the techniques of 19th-century illusionists to create a “little theatre of the world” in carefully devised mises-en-scène. Her use of chiaroscuro to conceal and reveal details allows the artist to explore a strange, unfamiliar and sometimes disturbing world.

Delphine Balley’s photo installation is in what used to be the Salle du Conseil at the Hôpital de la Charité — preserved when the building was demolished and reassembled in the Grand Hôtel-Dieu. The room is named after Dr Jean Lacassagne (1886-1960), head of the prison health service in Lyon, who was fascinated by tattoos and their symbolic language, basing his research on his study of prisoners’ bodies. Through symbols and decorations, the series L’Arrière-Monde evokes these bodily motifs as well as spiritualist drawings published in the journal of Allan Kardec (1804-1869), the founder of spiritualism in Lyon. Delphine Balley’s work invites us to reflect on knowledge, parallel beliefs and mystical writings, as it explores collective rituals of care — material and immaterial, sacred and profane — in a space that was once dedicated to the destitute.